This project includes research activities and technological developments essentials to build a software CAD solution for civil engineering. It uses the Building Information Model (BIM) as to centralize in a unique model access to data from various themes of a civil engineering project, in particular analytical calculus, the geometry itself and the regulatory verification of civil structures.
A major challenge is to improve graphical functionalities and information management but to introduce on the system design configuration capabilities and management of processes, so allowing users to participate actively in all decisions and dataflow analysis, as they were programmers themselves but not really having to programme.
The majority of current software solutions fall into one of two categories: (a) either is a product coming from the area of drawing and architecture so in general there is a lack of understanding about engineering processes, calculus and dimensioning of civil structures to name a few, or (b) it is a product from the engineering area but lacking versatility and computer graphics functionalities. That is the bridge we aim to cross over, having in the same team the competences and strategic vision of different domains involved.
The development of the project is divided into the following areas:
1. User interface, dealing with basic visual controls.
2. Visualization and rendering, focusing on cutting edge research expertise. It includes optimizations to speed up the graphical rendering as well as adding realism via appropriate shading and radiosity algorithms.
3. Query systems for the CAD module, with advanced data structures, such as N-trees.
4. Numerical analysis and general mathematics.
5. Computational geometry and graphs, with focus on setting up a geometric kernel that includes topological operations in Brep, solids, and automatic recognition of surfaces, geometry decimation, and computation for convex hulls, mesh generation and its manipulation.
6. Workflow and documentation in engineering
7. Interoperability of file formats, such as PDF, DXG, and DWG.
8. Finite elements techniques, to be used in surfaces and solids.